Priority Campaigns
Each year, The Conservation Alliance and its members select priority campaigns. These conservation opportunities are urgent, vital, and require national attention. Our priority campaigns may address competing demands for natural resources, focus on adapting to climate change, or recognize the right of indigenous communities to name a few. Priority campaigns and grantees on-the-ground receive additional resources from TCA and member companies in the form of special projects, meetings with decision makers or lobbying trips to DC, funding for in-person events or paid marketing, and more.
Current Priority Campaigns
Defending D-1 Lands in Alaska
Alaska’s D-1 lands harbor some of the largest intact landscapes left in the country, and are home to world class recreational resources for packrafting, photography, hiking, hunting, angling, and other outdoor activities in a setting as wild and remote and anywhere left in the world. These 28 million acres of land have proven crucial to driving the powerful recreation and tourism economy for the state of Alaska for decades. In 2024, TCA worked alongside members, grantees, and tribes in one of the largest conservation victories in the nation’s history to protect the D-1 Lands. We are now facing an administrative effort to undermine protection for Alaska’s public lands, endangering the state’s economy, the wellbeing of communities that rely on these lands, and long-term efforts to support the state’s unique biodiversity. TCA will work with TCA members and on-the-ground partners to oppose pro-development legislation and apply pressure on administrative decision-makers to ensure the region remains withdrawn from extractive activities.
Public Lands Grab Defense
A number of congressional, administrative, and judicial efforts have recently been waged against the American people in an attempt to seize and sell our public lands to special interests. This agenda to erode bedrock land management laws and privatize public lands threatens the nation’s powerful $1.2 trillion outdoor economy. If transferred from federal jurisdiction to states, real estate developers and the extractive industry would benefit at America’s collective expense. Efforts to transfer or privatize public lands ultimately undermine the very notion that federal lands are owned by the American people and managed by federal agencies, a privilege that has benefitted generations of outdoor enthusiasts in every corner of our country. Ultimately this will endanger outdoor access, conservation efforts, and economic vitality for communities reliant on outdoor recreation. TCA will galvanize members and partners to ensure efforts to privatize public lands are met with commonsense, economic arguments that result in public lands staying in public hands.
Defending Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument / Antiquities Act
The Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument was designated by former President Biden in 2023. Widely supported by the local community, this monument permanently protected nearly one million acres of public land adjacent to and surrounding the iconic Grand Canyon National Park. It also protects sacred homelands for surrounding tribes as well as the critical Colorado River watershed. The monument ensures exceptional outdoor recreation opportunities in the area. In 2025, this national monument – alongside many others across the American west – are facing threats of rollbacks from the Department of the Interior under President Trump. The Baaj and Grand Canyon landscapes are significant drivers of Arizona’s recreation economy, and rolling back protections threatens the wellbeing of community members, small businesses reliant on the health of this ecosystem, and the country’s $1.2 trillion outdoor economy. TCA will work with its members, the Mobilizing for Monuments coalition, and grantees to elevate the importance of the BNIK National Monument, its value to the local economies, and its significance as one of the most visited and beloved landscapes in the country.
Protecting the Boundary Waters
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is the most-visited wilderness in the country. Its pristine waters and unspoiled forests include critical wildlife habitat and offer unmatched recreational opportunities for canoeing and portaging as well as camping, fishing, paddling, dog sledding, hunting, and hiking. The area supports the people and economies of surrounding communities. After decades of advocacy to Protect the Boundary Waters, the Department of the Interior announced a 20-year mining ban on federal lands surrounding the area in 2023. Safeguarding this vast and wild boreal forest and lakeland recreation treasure from copper mining is critical to the environment and the regional economy. With the changing of the administration in Washington, D.C., this mining ban is endangered. TCA will work with members and grantees to highlight the economic benefits of recreation and conservation in the Boundary Waters. We will elevate the business voice to ensure that decision makers uphold permanent protections, support existing legislative opportunities to permanently protect the region, and oppose efforts to open the region to mining.
Protecting the Owyhee Canyonlands
Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands cover over 4.5 million acres of remote public lands, rich in biodiversity and critical habitat for over 200 species. The region offers generous opportunities for hunting, fishing, and other recreational activities. Unfortunately, the region is threatened by fires, invasive species, increasing development and unmanaged recreational pressures impacting the wellbeing of the landscape. In partnership with business members and grantees, TCA will champion bipartisan, locally-driven legislative solutions and highlight the recreational and economic importance of this region to secure permanent protections, which will help drive the state’s $8.4 billion outdoor recreation economy.
Restoring the Snake River
The four dams on the Lower Snake River have disrupted native salmon and steelhead ecosystems for decades. This has caused rapid species decline and significantly impacted the subsistence fishing rights of Native communities and the recreational fishing industries of the Pacific Northwest. A locally-driven coalition is advocating for solutions that will give these fish a fighting chance to survive, honor commitments made to Columbia and Snake River Tribes, and set the Northwest on track to invest in modernizing alternative methods of clean energy, transportation, irrigation, and recreation opportunities. The Conservation Alliance is committed to working with its member companies, grantees, and tribes to advocate at the state and federal levels for a solution that supports habitat recovery, boosts the outdoor recreation economy throughout the region, and prioritizes the voices of nearby tribal communities.
Related News
112 Businesses Join Together to Call for Boundary Waters Protections
This morning, we joined forces with priority campaign grantee Save the Boundary Waters and the Boundary Waters Business Coalition to deliver a letter to congressional offices from both parties to send a clear message to Congress: The Boundary Waters deserves immediate and long-term protection.
Priority Campaign Guest Blog: Dolores River
The Dolores River emerges from the dramatic peaks of the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado – flowing 241 miles west and then north before joining the Colorado River near Moab, Utah.
Priority Campaign Guest Blog: Bristol Bay
Bristol Bay is the crown jewel of salmon fisheries. In a time of global climate change, threatened species and landscapes, and declining salmon populations across the Pacific Northwest and into Alaska, no place can boast the ecological abundance of Bristol Bay, Alaska.
Priority Campaign Guest Blog: Boundary Waters
In 2022 Let’s Protect the Boundary Waters Wilderness Forever. America’s most popular and accessible Wilderness could gain permanent protection against risky copper mining by the end of this year.
